Joshua Fishman - July 13, 1982
Following the Partisans
Spell it, if you would, please.
Z-O-L-T-E-Y-E. Uh, day...day...daylight we went through that village. Luckily nobody--the--nobody to...nobody did anything wrong to us. Just happen we were just lucky nobody--there was--there weren't any of those murders across us, you know, among the, among the--on the way. And we came near the partisans. They were--it was about twelve kilometers farther from where we were hiding all the time and they were not going after the partisans. There were quite a few uh, Jewish people from all surrounding towns ???. Somehow there was even a woman and a daughter with a family from ???. ??? was about 80 kilometers away from us. And uh, there we were--it was semi-liberated. We were semi-liberated. Because there we had protection even though it happened to be this, this uh, guerillas that you call now? That's partisans.
Right.
They didn't--they were friendly and, and there were some Jewish people in, in this partisan too. But there were other partisan who were anti-Semitic too--they were known to kill Jews. There was especially one partisan uh, ??? that you would call it--in English you would call it uh, it's a part--like a part of the--from the army a part. Just a small part, about 70 men or so. Uh, they ??? killed some Jews. ??? they were called, this uh, this partisans. But this partisans were protecting us. They let us going after them and everything and that's obviously I and my mother survived. It's still happened--some calamities happened even then with the partisans because these--they were also organized these Banderovcis and Bulbovcis were organized like the partisans and the Banderovcis fight against the partisans. The partisans were--they were pro-Russian and the, the Banderovcis were anti-Russian, anti-Jewish, anti-German, anti-Polish. So they were fighting against the--against them. There were very, very li...they--I didn't hear of any case that they were once fighting against Germans. They were going on to look for--to kill Jews and uh, fight against the partisans--pro-Russian partisans. Also, there were uh, there was some villages where Polish people were. They, they killed some Poles too. So the Poles also escaped and went away with the partisans. Then they got friends with the Jews, the Poles. They were friends by uh, circumstances. Uh, until the, until the liberation we were going on this way. It happened once right at the end. I was going to tell you about this, this--the, the Bul...Bulbovci and the--they also attacked the partisans or they were going after in a village which was far from Dombrowitza, it was near to ??? this was a small town ??? Uh, they attacked us. I and my mother were hiding--at that time we were in um, in um, where they used--where they keep the grain, granary.
In a silo?
Uh, silo, yeah. In a silo. It was--there was no grain then because they was still in the, in the field and ready to be harvested. And the door was open and of course we went in and we were there uh, and when they attacked the killed some uh, killed and injured some partisans--at night attacked. But the--and the partisans--many of them ??? at that time, too, and they took--see the opportunity. And most of the Jewish people were near there in a, in a little wooded area--it was not a forest, just near the village a little wooded area. In the meantime they injure--one Jew from our town was injured and the one I told you from ??? the daughter of the, of the older woman, she was killed and uh, couple partisans injured too. Uh, it also happened before that the--also ??? partisans in uh, place, this uh, this uh, woods. It was not even a village there. I think it was called ???. Uh, uh, one woman and two girls--were a woman and a daughter and another uh, girl were killed right there--while they were coming for the partisans from the--to the Bulbovcis. Until the liberation we were going on this way. Then at the end in it uh, in January--now this began in November still was uh, typhus epidemic and uh, you know, from the lice. We were, were in uh, of course, unsanitary condition and the lice, lice transferring from one to the other, this uh, disease.
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